


Knowledge is Power

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament)
Genre: Betrayal, Community: 52fandoms, First-Century Attitudes, Gen, Judas POV, exegesis!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judas sees how it has to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowledge is Power

He did not understand until he saw her face that this was how it must end. 

The room was choked with the drowsy reek of nard, and she crouched there, weeping, howling like a dog, and the Master did nothing to stop her, only bent to stroke her hair, but then that was nothing new, was it: mad women, bad women, they stuck to the Master like burrs, and he suffered them to do it.

This one was mad, no doubt: sick-minded witch, throwing her grave-scents over him as if he were a corpse or an idol, mourning as if - as if it had all happened already, and failed.

As if it could only fail.

He looked at the Master sharply, and saw in his eyes a placid surrender, and then he knew, and could not bear to know.

It was going to fail, and the Master knew it, and was letting them follow regardless.

Judas stammered, because it was all that he could think of to beat away the awful knowledge that the hag had dragged in with her pot of perfume, "What a shocking waste! Think how much that could have been sold for - the poor...'

He convinced no one, least of all himself. John's eyes narrowed in obvious suspicion. The Master looked at him and said, without anger, "Let her alone; she is preparing for my death, that's all."

A fine thing to say, Judas thought; has he gone mad as well? A strange kind of triumph welled up within him amid the pain and the anger and the betrayal - triumph, for he knew now, he understood what the others didn't, that their great revolution was to end in dust and blood and shame, and there was victory in so small a thing as that knowledge.

As for the woman, she took no notice of him at all, but wiped the Master's feet with her hair. How he could let her do that...

Judas had never yet wanted to strike the Master. He was half-tempted, now; he wanted to hurt him, to show what the pain of betrayal felt like. Something checked him, some scruple that was first cousin to that mocking triumph, the awareness that he had been given - uniquely, it seemed, among all of them - an understanding of what was to come, and a chance to act accordingly.

Well: he would take it.


End file.
